Internet for Everyone: Reshaping the Global Economy by Bridging the Digital Divide

By Emdad Khan

Help the world bridge the digital divide by learning an easy-to-use method that allows everyone to enjoy the benefits of the Internet using just a phone and their voice.

Computer and technology expert Emdad Khan pinpoints the factors that affect the use of technology, including the language divide. While the English-speaking world dominates the Internet, its possible for all people to reap its benefits using just their voice in their native language.

The Voice Internet ushers in a new era of access to technology. It eliminates the need to learn a new language, is affordable, and overcomes problems associated with many devices, such as needing to use a small keypad and screen.

Get ready to learn
how Voice Internet technology rides on existing infrastructure;
how to take further steps to harness the benefits of the Internet; and
how this technology can positively affect economies and cultures.

If you are a decision maker, governmental policy maker, teacher, entrepreneur, philanthropist, or someone concerned with helping humanity enjoy access to the Internet, then this guidebook provides you with the knowledge to take action. Bridge the gaps that limit the usage of technology and open up the Internet for Everyone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 18, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462042494

Emdad Khan

Emdad Khan is an empath, creative and photographer. His debut collection of poetry was written during, what he describes as, a perfect storm of difficulties that plunged him into the deepest depression he has ever experienced. Emdad has suffered from anxiety and depression for most of his life but was formally diagnosed in 2013. He currently resides in Southend-on-Sea with his fiancée.

Book preview

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgements

About the Book

Author’s Biography

PART ONE

The World

of Divides and Gaps

Chapter 1

A Quick Look at Today’s World

Chapter 2

The need to Bridging The Digital Divide

Chapter 3

Existing Approaches CANNOT Really

Bridge the Digital Divide

PART TWO

The Way to Truly Bridging

the Digital Divide

Chapter 4

Approaches to really Bridge the

Digital Divide—Technology and Solution

Chapter 5

What is the Language Divide

and How to Bridge It

Chapter 6

Approaches to really Bridge the Digital

and Language Divides—Deployment

Chapter 7

Voice Internet—an enabling technology

for Several New Products and Services

PART THREE

Towards a New World

of Prosperity

Chapter 8

What’s next after the Digital and Language Divides are Bridged from Connectivity Standpoint?

Chapter 9

Reshaping the Global Economy

by Bottom of the Pyramid People

Chapter 10

What can happen after

the World Economy is Reshaped?

—The Dream, Challenge and Reality

References

APPENDIX A

Agricultural Extensions

Foreword

The means of communication across international borders has been made easier through the use of the Internet service. To all intents and purposes, this is an amazing invention through which humanity is able to discover knowledge and exchange information by the use of the computer, yet it has certain limitations and challenges in terms of accessibility particularly in societies where the computer is not common place, and the English language is not in use generally. This being the case, the need for a user friendly service became imperative so that as many people can have access to the Internet.

I have learnt by reading this book that in a world of growing rich-poor gap, widening Digital Divide, increasing social exclusion and unavailable healthcare for the Bottom of the Pyramid people (BOP), it is important to address these issues from a practical new perspective. Dr. Emdad Khan’s book describes an effective method of bridging the Digital and Language Divides by talking and listening to the Internet using any phone, called Voice Internet. The key technical contribution Voice Internet technology has brought to the industry is "rendering" that allows content to be transformed from today’s website into Short, Precise, easily Navigable, Meaningful and pleasant to listen to content in real time.

His book Internet For Everyone: Reshaping the Global Economy by Bridging the Digital Divide also tells us how to go beyond bridging the Digital Divide and improve economic, social, cultural and other developments by focusing on education, innovation and entrepreneurship.

The book addresses the key reasons for widening Digital Divide and shows how the Voice based access and its associated rendering capability overcomes most of the issues associated with the current methods. To name a few: phone is ubiquitous, especially with the phenomenal increase in access to mobile phone among the BOP, relative to both computers, and high end phones and Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs); talking and listening does not require literacy, very prominent at the bottom of the pyramid; unlimited access to any website as opposed to the need to re-write websites into small web pages to fit on a small screen; easier to learn and use; and usable while mobile.

Dr. Khan has introduced a new divide called Language Divide, similar to the Digital Divide and of equal magnitude. Over 70 percent of Internet content today is in English. Thus, many people in non-English speaking countries are left out from major part of the Internet which is called the Language Divide. This Divide has not been talked about much in the literature. The book provides a nice practical solution to the Language Divide by translating the content from English into other languages (and from any language to other languages) in real time and reading it over any phone. In fact, the Digital Divide will not be fully bridged if the Language Divide is not bridged as well.

The book emphasizes that Voice Internet is an enabling technology. The core technology can be used to develop many new products and services including: MicroBrowser allows any website content to be automatically and effectively displayed on any cell phone or PDA screen at ease without the need to re-write the web content in another language; Voice Computer allows a user to store, edit and manipulate files etc. on a server via phone call; NetTalk allows VoIP call using no broadband phone or no broadband connection, and more. These are all very important products for the Bottom of the Pyramid people (BOP).

My experiences in helping many people at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) in Zambia and Africa give me very good confidence on the approaches proposed by Dr. Khan, especially to transform bottom of the pyramid people into an enormous resource by bringing the Internet to almost everyone having some access to a phone and then providing education, innovation and entrepreneurship and involving all the key players in the food chain including the Governments, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), service providers, organizations, universities, and research institutions using a good Business Model. Dr. Khan also emphasized using all existing successful methods including telephone infrastructures, existing websites as they are, existing service providers and existing financing models such as Microfinance. These are very convincing and compelling approaches to really transform BOP into an enormous resource.

The focus on education, especially, on the informal education is very important. Many BOP cannot afford to go to school, many rural areas do not have sufficient number of schools or sufficient number of teachers and other resources. Getting a formal education may take long time and many may still not get jobs. On the other hand, some quick informal education, e.g., on. how to preserve mangoes can help many people. And such education can be provided easily over the phone using the Voice Internet. Dr. Khan nicely tied up Internet access, education, innovation and entrepreneurship to create an enormous resource from the BOP—"utilize the access to information to knowledge, use knowledge to drive innovation & entrepreneurship to finally drive the development. Education is a key component to develop knowledge from the information. It is also a key component for innovation and entrepreneurship".

The book also proposes logical solution to the problem of rich getting richer and poor getting poorer. Basically, the world is controlled by rich people (corporations or individuals).

So, the whole financial system is based on mainly to preserve rich people’s interest. Thus money mainly flows among the rich people and from the poor to the rich people; very little or no money flows from the rich to the poor. By creating an enormous resource from the BOP, rich would start using such a low cost valuable resource, causing significant amount of money to flow from the rich to the poor in a sustainable way which is very much needed to practically minimize the rich-poor gap.

Moreover, the newly created resource from the BOP will start creating new companies, new products and services, many of which will be attractive to the rich as well as Khan explains. Thus, more money will flow from the rich to the poor. The poor would buy much less things from the rich. These, in turn, will help achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These would also help circulate most of the money within the poor. Accordingly, the rich-poor gap will be minimized in a sustainable way, and many poor will be out of poverty, many will have great prosperity and some will even become rich. Together, they can start re-shaping the global economy.

Minimizing the rich-poor gap and improving the economy of the BOP will result significant improvements in other key areas including social, cultural, political and global peace. Accessing the Internet can stimulate key informal education to base of the BOP—people can naturally talk, listen and learn. People will be busy in learning as it will help them in various ways, most importantly their economic condition. Once they learn some good stuff and get a jobs, they will be more busy with their jobs and possibly with more continued learning. Hence they will be less interested in destructive activities such as terrorism. Besides, there are various other key added benefits—once base of the pyramid people get out of the poverty, all poverty related issues will be minimized or eliminated totally. Key poverty related issues are terrorism, spreading diseases, committing various social crimes, refugees from the developing world, disruption of law & order, not advancing education, healthcare, social depression and the like. Thus, by letting base of the Pyramid people get out of poverty and help drive global economy, this will in turn greatly help achieve global peace.

Internet For Everyone: Bridging the Digital and Language Divides—A Reality is an essential handbook for anyone who has the determination and vision to make a difference in a practical way to bridge the Digital & Language Divides, help improve economic, social, cultural and other developments and world peace. The approaches presented are powerful, practical and effective. This book is particularly a must read by policy and decision makers in the Government and non-Government Organizations (NGOs), Civil Societies, Organizations, Foundations, Corporations, educators, students, entrepreneurs, innovators and also the rich individuals, especially, those who would like to help the many Bottom of the Pyramid people around the world.

Kenneth D. Kaunda Dr (GCEZ)

FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF ZAMBIA

Preface

Why I wrote this Book

The world wealth is distributed very unevenly (e.g. top 1% of rich people own 40% of the world wealth!). Various gaps exist in today’s world: Rich-Poor gap, Digital Divide gap, Language Divide gap, gap in natural resources, gap in ethnicity and many more. More importantly most gaps have been increasing consistently in general. So, myself and my team at InternetSpeech, Inc, the company that I founded in 1999, have dedicated the last decade to understand why these gaps are increasing and how such gaps can be minimized. I realized that existing schemes to bridge the Digital Divide are good but not sufficient, and will not be able to really bridge the Divide. Learning from the users of Voice Internet (the technology that I invented to practically bridge the Digital Divide) and the industry, I also realized that just bridging the Digital Divide will not be sufficient—we also need to bridge another Divide of equal importance, the Language Divide. Moreover, just bridging the Digital and Language Divides will not be sufficient—we also need to focus on Education, Innovation and Entrepreneurship to really minimize all gaps and significantly help Economic, Social, Cultural and other developments with significant positive impact on world peace. Converting the Bottom of the Pyramid People (BOP) into an enormous resource is the key, and we need to provide them Internet and Education using the most natural interface (voice & hearing) ; using the most ubiquitous device, a simple phone and avoiding the need to know how to read or write. BOP are poor from financial standpoint but not from intelligence standpoint. So, given the time, efforts and guidance, they can be converted into a huge resource; thus helping themselves as well as the rich people as rich people will have access to low cost enormous expertise.

So, I have written this book to share this story.

In this world of over 6.5 billion people, more than 4 billion people are poor—40% live in poverty, and 16% live in extreme poverty. The World Bank defines poverty as living on less than $2 a day and absolute or extreme poverty as living on less than $1 a day. Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz in his fascinating latest book Making Globalization Work [Stiglitz2006] says Think for a minute what it means to live on one or two dollars a day. Life for people this poor is brutal. Childhood malnutrition is endemic, life expectancy is often below fifty years, and medical care is scarce. Hours are spent each day searching for fuel and drinkable water and… .. Apart from inadequate income two other issues are heavily associated with people living below the poverty line: insecurity and powerlessness. One World Bank report published a nice statement from a young poor woman in Jamaica that captures the sense of powerlessness: Poverty is like living in jail, living under bondage, waiting to be free. In general, poor have few opportunities to speak out. When they speak, no one listens; when someone does listen, the reply is that nothing can be done; when they are told something can be done, nothing is ever done.

On the other side of the coin there are the rich people, much smaller in number, but they own over 80% of the world wealth!!! They enjoy all the benefits of the civilization, they control the world economy, they control world business, world laws—they control almost everything except poverty. Well, that is not quite true though. They try to minimize poverty by donation, philanthropy, foundations etc. Obviously that is not enough since poverty has been increasing over centuries. In 2004, the United Nations took a new initiative to minimize poverty and improve the global distribution of wealth. This is called the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). Many people are working together to achieve this worthwhile global dream by 2015. It is important to take a closer look at the differences between rich and poor nations, and rich and poor communities within nation states. How does one rank the differences and gaps as to their contribution to sustaining poverty and preventing a sustained migration out of poverty. What are the causes for these gaps, what are the types of these gaps, are there other similar gaps, can these gaps be bridged, and if so how, to what level and the like.

Broadly speaking, the inequality is inherent in mother-nature. The world natural resources were not uniformly distributed when the world was created, different races were born in different parts of the world inheriting different resources and opportunities, not every human is born with the same capabilities, not every human develops the same level of intelligence even under the same environment etc etc. In short, by birth we are all different, the equity is different from the beginning. So, as we grew as a human race more gaps and inequities got developed. Today, we have rich-poor gap, gap in natural resources, gap in ethnicity, gap in male-female capabilities, gap due to the computer revolution (the so called Digital Divide), the gap due to disabilities and so on. Even a much simpler gap exists, between students in a class. Assume that a class has all the good equipments like a computer for each student, a nice projector so that everyone could easily see the lecture notes and everyone could hear the teacher very well—after providing all these facilities to all students, not all students in this class will perform equally. This implies that even if we do our best to minimize all the gaps, because of its inherent property, some gaps will remain. That is why Darwin said only the fittest will survive.

Should we try to reduce all these gaps? Can we really make these gaps go away? If so, how can we do so? These are the few key issues we will discuss throughout this book. Our premise is that the gap is an inherent property in this world. So, not all gaps can be eliminated or reduced to the same degree. For example, natural resources—a country cannot just acquire its missing natural resources. We have some good control on some gaps and relatively less control on other gaps. The Digital Divide, for example, is a gap that can be reduced to a manageable level that will have a measurable impact on a multifaceted program to reduce the gap between rich and poor. Yes, bridging the Digital Divide will eventually help reduce the gap between the rich and poor but there are many other factors that contribute to the rich-poor gap.

In general we should try to minimize all the gaps—no questions about that. But we would need to set our expectation right—that there will be some gaps no matter how much we try to minimize it as it is inherent in the system. However, by lowering it to a good level and to continue lowering it will yield a better world and hence that should be